January In A Nutshell

WELL HOW ABOUT THAT, I MADE IT.

January is always a bit of a higgledy-piggledy month. For one thing, I have to get used to dating things with the right year – and just getting into the groove of starting over again, setting new plans, reevaluating old ones and basically preparing for the year ahead.

But as always, despite best efforts, I often spend January in a bit of a daze – I can’t believe another year has gone by! Consequently, I have a rather small nutshell for tonight’s offering. 🙂

A New Look For Allison’s Well

First of all – my blog’s redesign – is DONE. I mean, yeah, it’s me, I might tweak the blog headers or something – but THAT’S IT. I am so happy and excited over my blog’s beautiful new design and I just want to throw another huge THANK YOU, Sarah Grace’s way for doing the most amazing job and helping me give Allison’s Well an overhaul! <3 SHE IS AMAZING AND FANTASTIC and I highly recommend her!!!!!!!

And by the way? What do you think of the new Allison’s Well? 🙂

Hosted and Finished Blog Party

It’s over.

Wow – that was a a lot of work – but fun! Even though it was very time consuming and took up the bulk of January I CAN’T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN because GIVEAWAYS. *throws presents left and right*

Writing

I finished several pieces of flash fiction that were already in the works and wrote and finished a few more.

Submitted three pieces of flash fiction to a magazine. I STILL haven’t heard back from them. Rejection isn’t fun but waiting endlessly for someone to tell you yea or nay is sheer torture.

I wrote and submitted another piece of flash fiction to a contest. I didn’t win (I didn’t really expect to except in brief moments when undisciplined imagination broke lose and indulged in a happy fantasy). But hey, I hit another deadline and I gave it a shot. I have no problem admitting that the winning story was better than mine. I still had victory, I hit deadlines. It’s good practice.

I also succeeded 15,000 words on my next Tales of Ambia story – The Goose Girl! Sadly, I haven’t finished the first draft as I had tentatively hoped I might this month – but I still made lots of progress!

Annnnd – I’m two thirds of the way through and I am very confident that I can finish the first draft before the end of February – by hook or by crook! Guys, hold me to this!

New Cover Design for The Key To The Chains

That’s right – I decided to do a paperback edition of The Key To The Chains. I know a lot of people that don’t have kindles so I thought, why not? I order the proof copy and it’s on its way – I can’t wait to have it available for everyone.

Annnnd I hired Victoria Lynn Designs to produce this gorgeous new cover – ISN’T IT BEAUTIFUL?

Movies

Went to the movies and saw The Darkest Hour. This was the first movie my whole family has gone to see since Risen back in 2016 so that made it extra special. The movie was fabulous – the acting, especially, was stellar. The whole film was very immersive and, warning, it’s a little stressful as you see a man who is so misunderstood stand utterly alone against the social pressure to cave in.

Churchill is called “brash,” “loud-mouthed,” “crazy,” “in-love-with-himself,” “an actor,” “frightening to people because they don’t know what he’ll say next.” Churchill was so misunderstood, so maligned and yet- God used this man who was not afraid to stand alone against cowards and near-sighted people who refused to accept the truth of what he was saying simply because he was confident and bombastic. Churchill struggled to make people see what humanity is always failing to see – there is no peace on this earth . . . and there is no middle-ground on a battlefield.

God used this man to save a nation and to shape the world as we know it. Sweep away the naysayers, if Churchill had not made the decisions he had made – WW2 would have had a very different ending.

Winston Churchill was not just a politician – he was a soldier, a reporter, a fiction author – he was a well-rounded, colorful personage who had been a common man and knew what he was about.

This is a man who had the courage to stand on a balcony during the Blitz and defy the bombs dropping on his city – despite everyone’s protests that he should seek safety.

Churchill did not seek the safe route.

And yes, can you tell it was definitely an inspiring movie and I highly recommend it?

Exercise

Oops.

“hides jelly bellies”

Not quite as much exercise yet as I would like, but definitely more exercise going on in January then in previous months. I found my pedometer and started getting those steps up for a couple of weeks . . . then fell off – you know how it is. 🙁 February, I’ll ramp it and be consistent. *crosses fingers*

Art Every Day

Singing / Youtube

My goal was to start practicing my singing every night again and post a song to Youtube once a month.

Isn’t it nice that I get a chance to TRY AGAIN? *doleful look* I have made a goal to post a song TWICE to Youtube in February to make up for missing January and I’m going to try my hardest to do it.

Reading

Read 21 books in January and actually did review some of them – not too bad, considering I thought I would have to cut back on reviews this year. And I still have to, but – NOT TODAY!

Cutting Back On Social Media

Okay, I DID cut back on private chatting (google hangouts) which was much better for me but I still spent a lot more time on public forums – Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter than I need or want to. *slaps self* #stopit

I do soooo much better mentally and emotionally (and consequently, physically) if I pull the plug more – but it’s hard for this little extrovert.

Nevertheless, I shall keep trying to cut back.

Commenting On Other People’s Blogs

*primal roar stemming from overwhelmed frustration*

You wonderful bloggers post too often!!

Nah, I’m just kidding – I love your posts, I’m just bad about commenting – I caught up with the bulk of ones I follow the first week or so of January but then everybody started posting again. #why?

Ah me, I keep reminding myself that February is a new month!

And WOW – that’s the end of January, folks.

As I said, a teensy, tiny nutshell. Believe me when I saw working on the blog’s new design and the blog party took up a lot of time. *hides face* I DID make a big decision or two and mapped out some goals for the first quarter of 2018 and both of these developments are super exciting, but I think I’ll leave that all for another post.

So how about you, my dear followers? What happened in January? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

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About Allison

Allison Tebo is a Christian homeschool graduate and indie author. She works part-time in sales and operations as an agent for a major transportation company. She loves chocolate, rain storms, and swinging, and is an unapologetic stuffed animal collector.